The general's report

[Skybird]

I find this worth to take note of - and remember it. It is a long essay by Seymour Hersh on General Taguba's report about his examination of abhu Graib. the general forsaw the problems for him personally when he was ordered to conduct that exmaination. He is said that sometimes the Pentagon felt like a Mafia to him.

Gen. Taguba was fired early this year. His report was not what they wanted it to be. If he would have lied instead, the outcome probably wouldn't have been any different for him. Consider him a casualty of war.

There could be serious legal consequences for Rumsfeld for having lied under oath. This time he would not be sued from initiatives in foreeign countries, but the US. i honestly hope so. He and the others should be held responsbile for the crimes they commited, including lying, deception of the public, launching unprovoked war of aggression and assaulting a foreign sovereign nation. Much of the tens if not hundreds of thousands of deaths he - and others - must be given credit for.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...printable=true

Originally Posted by Gen. Taguba

“They always shoot the messenger,” Taguba told me. “To be accused of being overzealous and disloyal—that cuts deep into me. I was being ostracized for doing what I was asked to do.”

Taguba went on, “There was no doubt in my mind that this stuff”—the explicit images—“was gravitating upward. It was standard operating procedure to assume that this had to go higher. The President had to be aware of this.” He said that Rumsfeld, his senior aides, and the high-ranking generals and admirals who stood with him as he misrepresented what he knew about Abu Ghraib had failed the nation.

“From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service,” Taguba said. “And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.”